Gardnerville caucus precincts tell of trouble reporting

Nevada Democratic caucuses graphic by MGN.

3:55 p.m.

Two of the four caucus precincts at a middle school in the northern Nevada city of Gardnerville had trouble getting through on the phone hotline to report results.

Kimi Cole, the chair of the Douglas County Democrats who was the site lead at the school, said her precinct and another tried to call the hotline after their caucuses wrapped up early afternoon but instead of being put on hold they were met with a tone that seemed to indicate the number wasn’t working.

A third person at the caucus site was able to get through and report results right after, but Cole said she and the other precinct leader decided to use one of the Nevada Democratic Party’s backup methods by texting a photo of their caucus reporting worksheets.

Cole said the data was also transmitted by the iPad calculator, which seemed to run smoothly for everyone at that site.

3:45 p.m.

Nevada’s Republican party Saturday awarded all 25 of its delegates to President Donald Trump. The Nevada party had already canceled its caucuses. Instead, the state Republican committee voted by acclimation to give Trump all of its delegates at the same time as Democrats were tallying caucus votes, according to party executive director Will Sexauer.

No other Republican qualified for the balloting by the state committee, Sexauer said.

This gives Trump 86 of the 87 delegates awarded so far. Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld won one delegate in Iowa. South Carolina, which votes next Saturday, also had canceled its primary. Its delegates will not be bound to any candidate.

3:35 p.m.

Pete Buttigieg is trying to fundraise off the recent revelation that Russia may be trying to help the campaign of his rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

News broke Friday that intelligence officials briefed Sanders a month ago about the apparent Russian meddling effort. Sanders called on the Russians to stop, but also used the occasion to take a shot at The Washington Post, which first to report it. He suggested that the story could have been timed to hurt him in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday.

Buttigieg’s campaign said in a fundraising email Saturday that Sanders’ response was “deeply troubling” but also “telling of the kind of politics we’re in for in Bernie’s vision of the future.”

The email went on to suggest Sanders would foment what it called “more conspiracy theories, more attacks undermining the free press when they write something you don’t like, more attacks on anyone who doesn’t agree with you 100% of the time.”

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3:30 p.m.

Nevada Democrats have discovered an anomaly as they count up caucus votes at the site on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno: one of the precincts doesn't have any voters.

Amy Travis, a Bernie Sanders supporter from a neighboring precinct, was given the task of filling in the "zeroes" next to all the candidates names in precinct 7321.

She thought it was strange that no one voted there either during early voting or at Saturday's caucus. So she got out her phone and found a map of the precinct to find it consists entirely of a 600-acre county park just west of the UNR campus.

Austin Daly, the site leader at the UNR campus, says he thinks there used to be two houses in the precinct along the edge of San Rafael Park. But he says they might be vacant now or at least aren't occupied by residents who wanted to cast a ballot in the Democratic caucus.

Daly says the precinct's lone delegate to the county convention will be recorded as "uncommitted." Once they get to the county convention, a delegate will be elected to that uncommitted slot.

2 p.m.

Bernie Sanders has moved on to Texas, where he addressed about 1,500 supporters in El Paso as the results came in from the Nevada caucuses. Early voting is already underway in Texas, one of the Super Tuesday states holding contests March 3.

Before his El Paso campaign event, Sanders visited a memorial for the victims of the Aug. 3 shooting that left 22 dead and about two dozen injured. That’s according to a local politician who addressed the crowd before Sanders took the stage. Another 2020 contender, Mike Bloomberg, also said he visited the memorial before his rally this month.

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1:45 p.m.

A national co-chair of Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign says the Massachusetts senator's finishes in some of the first voting contests are not reasons to count her out. Rep. Ayanna Pressley told The Associated Press on Saturday that Warren's strengths have long been underestimated and that she's unconcerned about prior finishes or poll numbers.

Warren finished third in Iowa and fourth in New Hampshire. As voters caucused Saturday in Nevada, Pressley said she believed Warren would surprise voters in the states that follow, like South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states.

Pressley is spending several days campaigning for Warren in South Carolina before its primary in a week.

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12:45 p.m.

Votes are being cast in the Nevada presidential caucuses. It's the first presidential contest in the West and the first to test the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates with black and Latino voters. Altogether, 200 locations are hosting caucuses. Among them are seven casino-resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford is a Democrat who's not endorsing a candidate. He says the state “represents an opportunity for these candidates to demonstrate their appeal to a larger swath of our country.” All eyes are on the process after the lead-off Iowa caucuses yielded a muddy result marked by error.

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12:40 p.m.

What happens at a Nevada caucus site if two candidates end up in a tie? According to one precinct leader, it comes down to the luck of the draw.

Several hundred voters and about a dozen observers were crowded into a site on the campus of the University of Nevada in Reno when things got underway. The temporary precinct captain, Becky Cohen, explained the process and said everything will be transparent, with results at each stage written on poster boards stuck to the walls.

She closed by holding up a deck of cards and saying, “If there's a tie, God forbid, this is what we do. It's Nevada.”

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Noon

Several of the Democratic presidential candidates are out among the voters as the Nevada caucuses get underway. Pete Buttigieg greeted supporters at a Las Vegas caucus site shortly before the start. The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor shook hands and exchanged small talk with those gathered at a south side high school.

Buttigieg nodded to Nevada’s diversity compared with the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire that have already held contests. He says Nevada offers him a chance to prove he has a broad base of support. Buttigieg has been dogged by low polling numbers with minorities, particularly black voters.

Elizabeth Warren swung by a suburban Nevada caucus site to pose for pictures with supporters and offer doughnuts to volunteers. She ducked inside for a moment and called out to voters still waiting in line to caucus. She said: “Thank you for participating in democracy.”

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11:45 a.m.

At Rancho High School, a 38-year-old Las Vegas resident, community organizer and political activist was changing her voter registration from independent so that she could caucus.

Lashonda Marve-Austin said: “I’m black, so I don’t want a candidate that just wants to do the right thing for black people. I want them to do the right thing for all the people. She added: “And then I’m poor, so I don’t want them to just do the right thing for poor people, I want them to do what’s right for people overall.”

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11:30 a.m.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee is expressing confidence that the Nevada caucuses will go smoothly and won't repeat the problems that muddied the results in Iowa. The hours ahead will show whether he’s correct.

Tom Perez spoke to reporters Saturday at a caucus site at the Bellagio hotel and casino on the Las Vegas strip. He says the goal in Saturday’s caucuses is to release the results as soon as possible but “first and foremost, to get it right."

Perez says the popularity of early voting made processing those votes difficult but party officials have worked overtime to accomplish the task.

Nearly 75,000 people participated in a four-day early voting period that ended on Tuesday. Their choices will be added to results of Saturday’s in-person caucusing. Perez says the party has trained more than 3,000 people to carry out the caucuses, with training going on as recently as Friday.

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11 a.m.

Before the sun started peeking out behind the clouds in late morning, Elizabeth Warren volunteers were shielding Nevada caucus goers for the rain with umbrellas as they entered a caucus location at a high school on the east side of Las Vegas.

Turnout appeared to be light and there was no line at the registration tables an hour before caucuses were supposed to start.

In one room with about a dozen caucus-goers standing around chatting, about half the attendees were wearing Pete Buttigieg buttons.

One Buttigieg supporter, 54-year-old Sue Thornton, said she worried the poor weather in the morning and the early vote may have cut into caucus-day turnout. She said in 2016, lines were out the door when she showed up to caucus.

Thornton works in food and beverage management at a hotel-casino. She said she was interested in Buttigieg from the start and his performance in the campaign sealed her support. She says: "I am a sucker for a nerd and a geek, and he fits the bill. ... Stays calm and collected. Speaks seven languages, for goodness’ sake.”

In a tweet, the Democratic hopeful says the haul is double what the campaign had hoped to raise between the New Hampshire primary and Saturday’s Nevada caucuses. It's unclear how much came in since Wednesday night, when Warren savaged New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg during the Democratic debate in Las Vegas.

Warren’s disappointing fourth place finish in her neighboring state of New Hampshire was considered potentially fatal to her campaign. But her supporters believe she can build on her strong debate performance and find a path to victory. The money will help.

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9:45 a.m.

Nevada Democrats say they added 10,000 people to their rolls during four days of early caucus voting this week.

The state party announced Saturday, hours before presidential caucuses were set to begin, that more than one out of 10 early voters took advantage of same-day registration and became Democratic voters.

Nevada’s caucuses are open only to Democrats but people can register as Democrats or switch their affiliation as they show up to vote.

Democrats outnumber Republicans in Nevada and had about 610,000 active registered voters through the end of January.

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9:15 a.m.

The political focus Saturday is on the 200 locations across Nevada that are hosting presidential caucuses.

It's the third contest on the 2020 election calendar as Democrats try to determine which candidate will take on President Donald Trump in November.

Nevada will test the candidates' strength with black and Latino voters for the first time in 2020, after contests in overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire.

Questions linger about Nevada Democrats' ability to report election results quickly as new concerns surface about foreign interference in the U.S. election. Saturday's caucuses are the first since technical glitches and human errors plagued Iowa's kickoff caucuses. Nevada Democrats have projected confidence in their process but it's not certain full results will be released on the day of the vote.

The state party added to its responsibilities by offering early voting - something Iowa didn't attempt.

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9 a.m.

President Donald Trump is mocking a recent intelligence briefing given to the House intelligence committee about Moscow's interference in the 2020 race. He's claiming that House Democrats are saying Russia wants Bernie Sanders to win.

Democratic presidential candidate Sanders said Friday that U.S. officials told him about a month ago that Russia has been trying to help his campaign, just as Russia did on Trump's behalf in 2016.

There actually are conflicting accounts about what the briefers told the House intelligence committee about Russia’s intentions. One intelligence official said members were not told in the briefing that Russia was working to aid Trump directly. But advancing Sanders’ candidacy could be seen as beneficial to Trump’s reelection prospects.

A busload of volunteers for Pete Buttigieg is on its way to South Carolina from Indiana to knock on doors for him in the campaign for the Democratic presidential primary a week away.

His campaign says 18 volunteers are coming from South Bend and Gary to spread the word on the former South Bend mayor. They’ll also attend Sunday church services before heading back. Buttigieg and other contenders are in Nevada for that state’s caucuses Saturday.

The candidates are expected to spend much of the coming week campaigning in South Carolina for the last of the four early-voting contests. Their debate in Charleston on Tuesday will be the final one before that primary and the March 3 Super Tuesday contests.

(Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

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